THE EXTERIOR.
Built upon the verge of a slope, along whose base the Skell hurries
eastwards under many bridges to join the Ure among the meadows a
half-mile below the town, Ripon Cathedral stands unusually well.[33] Of
general views the two best, perhaps, are to be had from the wooden
bridge by Bondgate Green, and from the south-east gate of the graveyard.
Unfortunately lack of funds prevented Sir Gilbert Scott from raising the
roofs of nave and transept to their original pitch; but what most
injures the general effect is the lowness of the central tower, which is
no higher than those at the west end. This fault, however, must have
been far less noticeable when all three towers were crowned with lofty
spires. And, even as it stands, the exterior of Ripon is dignified and
not unworthy of its commanding site. The size of the clearstorey
windows, the severity of the transept, the obvious variety of style and
date throughout the building--these are the features that strike the
observer most forcibly.
Several kinds of material have been employed. Up to almost the end of
the thirteenth century the builders used a coarse gritstone such as is
found five miles to the south-west at Brimham Rocks, and also a finer
gritstone or sandstone that may have come from Hackfall. After that date
they built with magnesian limestone, brought partly, perhaps, from near
York, but chiefly, it would seem, from Quarry Moor, a mile south of the
city. At the last restoration the older parts were repaired with
Hackfall stone, and the later parts with limestone from Quarry Moor and
Monkton Moor, and so extensive were the repairs needed on the exterior,
that the church somewhat belies, by its appearance, its real antiquity.
The most picturesque approach is from High St. Agnes-gate by a flight of
steps, which ascend through an old arch to an avenue of limes that leads
up to the south door; but it is better, perhaps, that the survey should
begin at the west end.
=The West Front= was doubtless the object of two indulgences, issued
respectively by Archbishop de Gray in 1233 and by Pope Alexander IV. in
1258, and was therefore erected just before or during the struggle
between Henry III. and Simon de Montfort, in the best period of the
Early English style.
The height of the gable is said to be 103 feet, and that of the towers
110 feet, and the front is divided by the string-courses into four
stages. In the central compartment the lowest stage is approached by
three steps, and is filled by three doorways, set in a thickening of the
wall, and surmounted by gables finished with crosses. The central
entrance, higher, more widely splayed, and more deeply recessed than the
others, has five orders and five triple shafts in the jamb, while they
have three orders and three shafts, the innermost of which is triple and
the others single. As usual in this style, the shafts are detached and
not worked on the stones of the jamb. The mouldings of the capitals are
carried through the jamb from end to end, and on the front of the piers
between the archways is a curious moulding which resembles an undercut
roll set up on end, and which has a capital as if it were a shaft. In
the arches the mouldings are chiefly rounds and hollows: many of the
former are filleted, and some of the latter are filled with the
dog-tooth (an ornament peculiar to this style), which is more profusely
employed in the central arch than in the others. The terminations of the
dripstones are foliated and stand out detached. The central gable is
adorned with a square panel of foliage, and either of the others with a
sunk foliated quatrefoil, and between the gables are spouts issuing from
the heads of animals. It is worthy of remark that all three doors open
into the nave; for as a rule when a church has three west doors, two of
them open into the aisles.[34] The wooden doors in these and all the
doorways of the church are of considerable age, and those in the central
archway here bear the date 1673 in nails.
Above the doors is a tier of five lancet windows, and above these
another tier, also of five, which diminish in height toward the sides,
the last window at either end being, however, as high as the tier below.
These tiers occupy the whole width of the compartment. Above them,
again, is a group of three small lancets graduated to the gable and
placed very high, with a string-course below them. These serve to light
the space between the internal and external roofs. In all this work the
detail is of the very best: the various arches are richly moulded and
supported by clusters of engaged shafts, which in the two great tiers
are banded at about half their height, and the dog-tooth ornament is
everywhere employed profusely. The lower tier is the more elaborate--its
mouldings more numerous, its shafts more richly clustered, its capitals
covered with foliage; and between the second and third lancets from the
right there is a small niche with a toothed edge and the remains of a
figure. At either end of the two tiers an ornament not unlike the
ball-flower of the Decorated style is carried up the jamb, and a bold
corbel-table runs up the sides of the gable, under the apex of which
there is a trefoil panel, while the whole is crowned by an elaborate
cross.
[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE NORTH-WEST.]
In the towers the lowest of the four stages is relieved by a little
arcade of six trefoiled arches, with detached shafts, fluted capitals,
and dripstones not trefoiled and terminating in heads. Each of the three
upper stages is occupied by three tall lancets, of which that in the
centre, higher and broader than the others, is pierced and (except in
the belfry) glazed. In their enrichment these arcades resemble the
windows of the central compartment. The second stage is not quite so
high here in the towers as it is there, and the level of the
string-course above is consequently broken. The third stage, taller than
the second, reaches to the springing of the gable. The fourth, taller
than the third, rises somewhat above the gable cross, and the shafts of
the lancets are twice banded, while above are two circular panels, which
on the north tower are raised and contain quatrefoils, but on the south
tower are sunk and contain trefoils. On the other faces of these towers
the arches are not so richly moulded, and the shafts are single and also
detached, except in the uppermost stage of the north tower, where they
are engaged and filleted. As the second stage does not descend so low
upon the western face as upon the other faces, the string-course below
it, after passing round the corners of the facade, is stopped, and when
it is resumed it passes above the sill of the arcade, being carried
round the little plinths of the shafts. All the string-courses, it will
be noticed, are enriched with the nailhead moulding. The buttresses rise
to the parapets without diminishing in breadth or projection--an early
feature, and three large rolls or beads are worked upon their edge.
Those that flank the portal have each a large niche at the bottom, with
engaged shafts, and the head and dripstone trefoiled. At the corners of
the facade, where the staircases are, the buttresses are triple. The
original corbel-table, surmounted by a row of dog-tooth ornament,
remains at the top of the towers, but the battlements and pinnacles have
been put up since the removal of the spires in 1664, and were renewed in
1797.
The bells, ten in number, are in the south tower. Of the mediaeval peal,
which consisted of six bells, the largest, known as the _Klank Knoll_,
was made in 1379 at York, and perhaps hung in the north tower; while
some of the others seem to have been made in Ripon in 1391. They were
all recast in 1761 by Lester & Pack of London, after which there were
eight. Two of these (Nos. 4 and 7) were recast in 1866 by Warner of
London, and two new bells (Nos. 1 and 2), by Shaw of Bradford, have been
added since 1890. The ninth bell is rung every evening at nine for the
curfew. The mediaeval clock, mentioned in 1379, has long vanished;
another was put up in 1723; the present clock (by Thwaites of
Clerkenwell) dates from 1808.
The whole front has been much restored by Sir Gilbert Scott, especially
the doorways and the towers. The latter were badly cracked through
settlement (due partly to the fact that in either tower one of the sides
is older than the rest),[35] but, as Sir Gilbert himself declared, they
are once more strong enough to bear spires, and it is to be hoped that
the hint will some day be taken. The more the west front of Ripon is
studied, the more it becomes apparent how much thought has been expended
upon it. Yet as a work of art it is perplexing. To some it will appear
beautiful as a design; to others its excellence of detail will be its
only commendation, and they will complain that the tiers of windows are
wider than the gable, that there is a disproportion between the little
arcade in the lowest stage of the towers and the great lancets in the
upper stages, that the height of the latter makes the towers appear
top-heavy, that the whole facade lacks projection and depth of shade,
and that there is too much glass. Some dissatisfaction was felt, as the
Fabric Rolls indicate, in 1379, when masons were employed to divide each
of the large windows into two lights with a quatrefoil above.[36] The
mullions and quatrefoils remained till our own day, when they were
removed by Sir Gilbert Scott, whose action the present state of expert
opinion on restoration would severely condemn.
=The Nave. North Side.=--By being rebuilt with the addition of aisles, the
nave became as wide as the west front. Its width is 87 feet internally
and nearly 100 feet externally, and it is the widest nave in England
after York, Winchester, Chichester, and St. Paul's. The date of the
rebuilding is indicated by a Chapter minute of 1502, which alludes to
the _onus canonicis modo impositum super reaedificationem navis_. The
Fabric Rolls mention the purchase of stone in 1503, and the roofing of
some "new work" in 1505, while a will of 1508 requires the testator's
body to be buried in "the new work of the College Church." These are
doubtless references to the south side, which is evidently the older and
bears internally the arms of Archbishop Savage (1501-1507). Again, an
indulgence of 1512, by Archbishop Bainbridge (1508-1514), alluding to
the demolition of the old nave as then complete, suggests that the north
wall had been left standing till then, and the laying of the foundation
of the north aisle, which bears his arms, is mentioned in the Roll for
1512-13. It appears from the Rolls that the main roof was up by 1520-21.
Lastly, Leland's allusion to "the body of the Chirch of late dayes made
of a great Widnesse" shows that the main part of the work was finished
at any rate by about 1538.[37]
The nave is divided--east of the towers--into six bays, of which the
easternmost is narrower than the rest, to answer to a fragment of the
old nave preserved within. The plinth is considerably higher than that
of the west front.
On the north side, the six buttresses project 5 feet at the base and
rise to the parapet in two stages, which are crowned by gables. These
gables have their sides curved inwards and are adorned with crockets and
finials, the latter being attached to the front of the gable, while
grotesques project from the angles. The windows are of three lights, and
are rather acutely jointed and deeply set for such late work, and their
arches are well moulded, a broad hollow running up the sides. As is
often the case in late work, there are no sub-arches in the tracery, and
the mullions are carried up through the head. The easternmost of these
windows is of two lights, and has a transom in the tracery, and the
westernmost is shortened to allow of a doorway of four-centred form
beneath. Below the sills runs a string-course, which rises to pass over
the door. The parapet is battlemented, not for military purposes but for
ornament, and at intervals are the beginnings of panelled pinnacles, set
diagonally and partially embedded in the battlements. The clearstorey
has no pilasters or buttresses, but where it joins the west tower a
projecting strip of masonry may be seen half imbedded in the Early
English work and half in the Perpendicular. This is, without doubt, the
upper part of one of the buttresses of the old nave.
The clearstorey windows are actually larger than those of the aisle
below, and are again rather acutely pointed for late work. They are of
five lights, and the two mullions in the middle are carried up through
the head, but a sub-arch comprises the two outer lights on either side.
The last window eastwards is of three lights, is shorter than the rest,
and has several transoms in the tracery. In the parapet, the coping is
not carried down the sides of the battlements as it is on the aisles,
and the rudimentary pinnacles spring from grotesque corbels at the
string-course, with a plain corbel at the side of each to carry the
water-spout.
=The Central Tower. North and West Sides.=--The central tower of Ripon is
probably unique among towers in being divided vertically between two
different styles of architecture. Its north and west sides are
Archbishop Roger's work,[38] but the other sides are Perpendicular,
having been rebuilt after the collapse of the south-east angle. Seen
from the north-west, however, it presents much the same appearance now
as in the twelfth century, and either side displays a pair of
round-headed windows, with the weathering of the original roof rising
high between them and (on the west face) cutting off their corners. The
windows have a shaft in the jamb, and the abacus of the capitals is
continued round the tower as a string, but interrupted by the
buttresses and weatherings, as is also another string below the sills.
In the windows of the north side there is a space or tympanum over the
inner arch. Each corner of the tower was strengthened by a pair of flat
buttresses, with one shaft at the corner itself and another at the inner
side of either buttress, and with the shafts banded half way up and
again near the top. These buttresses are received in an overhanging
corbel-table, above which runs a hollow moulding, filled with dog-tooth
ornament of a large size and continued round the projections that serve
for gargoyles. The use of this Early English ornament in a scheme which
might otherwise be pure Norman affords a good instance of the
Transitional character of the work. The battlements are later.
=The North Transept=, with the three adjacent bays of the choir, gives
some idea of the external appearance of Archbishop Roger's church.[39]
The date of the beginning of the work ascribed to him is placed within
his lifetime (1154-1181) by his own words quoted in Chapter I. The
transept is divided by the string-courses into four stages, and has a
very massive plinth which is lower than that of the nave, thus
expressing the slope of the ground. The west wall is shorter than the
east and has two bays only, but south of the second bay, and separated
from it by a flat pilaster, is a narrow space, along the top of which
are the remains of a cornice: the two bays proper are separated by a
recessed buttress of some projection. One round-headed window, divided
by a mullion, appears in the second stage; and in the fourth stage are
two plain, round-headed windows, not subdivided. The original
corbel-table remains above, but it is surmounted by a (probably)
fourteenth century battlemented parapet, which is returned over the
central buttress, forming a square turret, which has a (renewed)
gargoyle below it, and is pierced with a cross. The buttresses at the
north-west corner of the transept, where is a staircase, are clustered
and rise to the top of the wall, and like most Norman buttresses, and
some of Early English date (as in the west front), they do not diminish
as they ascend. The large buttress on the west side of this corner has
two carved stones built into it at the height of about eighteen feet
from the ground. They are covered with patterns resembling the knots so
often found on ancient crosses, and are of especial interest as being
possibly survivals of the church built by St. Wilfrid.[40] It is
noticeable that the first string-course is the only one which is not
carried round the buttresses at this corner. A recessed buttress of the
same type separates the end of the transept from that of an aisle which
is thrown out from its eastern side.
[Illustration: DOORWAY, NORTH TRANSEPT.]
The lowest stage of this north elevation is blank save for a rather
interesting doorway set in a thickening of the wall near the western
corner. In this doorway the innermost arch is of unusual form--a trefoil
resting on corbels--and its edges are left square and plain. Over it is
a semicircular arch of three orders with three detached shafts in either
jamb, and as usual throughout almost all Archbishop Roger's work, the
arch has the edge-roll between hollows (here on every order), the shafts
are detached, their bases round upon square, and their capitals
square-topped, with the edge of the abacus hollowed. The capitals here
are enriched with good foliage of a rather classical type.
In the stage above are three round-headed windows with a shaft in either
jamb and foliage on the capitals. Each of these windows, like that on
the west side, and several in the other transept, has been divided by a
mullion into two lights, presumably in the fourteenth century.[41] The
third stage, which corresponds to the triforium within, is blank here as
on the west side, and in the fourth stage are three round-headed
windows, plainly recessed and chamfered. The gable, on which stands a
plain cross, has been lowered, as is shown by the weathering on the
tower, and its sides, after descending, take an upward turn to meet the
corners. It is flanked by two lofty square turrets, which have been
compared with those on the west front of Tewkesbury. They have a shaft
at each angle, are pierced on each face with two round-headed openings
under a round arch, with a string below running round the turret, and
are surmounted by pyramidal stone caps ending in pommels and having a
rude pinnacle at each corner. The end of the aisle is set back, and
displays a window like the three above the door, but without the
dividing mullion; and above this a round-headed niche, doubtless once a
window that lighted the space over the aisle-vault; while a round arch
over this niche, and a little pointed arch on the buttress adjacent
westwards, carry a curious thickening of the masonry above. The
arrangement of the windows here breaks the continuity of the first
string-course, which, after crossing the main elevation, has to be
stopped and resumed at a lower level in order to pass beneath the
windows of the aisle. At the corner of the latter are more clustered
buttresses, terminating below the parapet, and above them rises a plain
gabled pinnacle (an addition, probably, of the fourteenth century),
while another buttress, rising from the inclined coping of the
aisle-wall, runs up the clearstorey.
The east side of the aisle has two more buttresses like those at the
corner, and consists of two bays, each containing a window like that at
the end. It is hard to say whether the moulded string or cornice below
the parapet is original, but the gargoyle which juts from it and the
parapet itself, with its cruciform piercings, are not earlier than the
fourteenth century. The roofs of the aisles in both transepts and in the
choir have been lowered, and it has been suggested that this was done at
the time when the Minster was fortified against the Scots, in order to
afford better standing-room for armed men,[42] and the various
battlements on choir and transepts were probably erected for the same
occasion. Here the round arches of the triforium have been built up, and
the clearstorey harmonizes with the more elaborate scheme of the choir.
The wall is divided into three bays by flat pilasters received in the
cornice, and each bay contains a round arch, pierced and glazed, between
two lower and narrower pointed arches, all resting on single detached
shafts. Between the buttresses runs a corbel-table, supporting a
battlemented parapet of Decorated character, in which the merlons are of
great width in proportion to the embrasures--an early feature--and have
the usual cruciform piercings, so splayed at the back as to leave no
doubt that they were really intended for the use of archers. The three
gargoyles below have been renewed, and none of the gargoyles on choir or
transepts are earlier, perhaps, than the Decorated period.
=The Choir. North Side.=--Here the three westernmost bays of the aisle and
clearstorey respectively are Archbishop Roger's work. Two flat
pilaster-buttresses rise out of the slope of the plinth and run up the
aisle-wall, each terminating short of the parapet in two sets-off close
together. The level of the window-sills was the same here as in the
transept, but the string-course has been broken in the Decorated period
by the insertion of three slender windows, each having two lights with a
quatrefoil above. Above the windows comes the moulded string or cornice
continued from the transept, and above this the pierced merlons of the
Decorated battlement are again very broad in proportion to the
embrasures. Instead of being built up, the exposed arches of the
triforium have here been glazed. The clearstorey resembles that of the
transept, but the corbel table is surmounted here by a slope, on which
rest two large gargoyles (renewed), and instead of a Decorated
battlement there is a plain coping.
The last three bays of the clearstorey and the last two of the aisle are
Decorated work, probably of the end of the thirteenth century, and here
the level of the plinth is again lowered to suit the slope of the
ground. In the aisle the two bays are separated from the rest and from
each other by buttresses having a projection of 8 feet. Either of these
buttresses is crowned by a gable having a finial, and is surmounted by a
tall square pinnacle to receive the thrust of a flying buttress that
spans the aisle; and either pinnacle has its sides panelled and gabled,
a head at each corner, and five finials. The two last aisle-windows are
larger than those in the western bays, but have much the same tracery.
They have, however, a thick shaft worked on the stones of the jamb, and
a large keeled round on the edge of the arch, and there is no dripstone.
Below them is a small string-course, which is carried round the east
end. The string or cornice above them is made to match that on the
western portion of the aisle, but in the battlement the merlons are of
merely ordinary width. In the clearstorey the wall is considerably set
back from the Transitional bays, and the three windows are very
elaborate. Their arches are richly moulded and acutely pointed, the
springing-line being rather low down. Each window is divided into four
lights, comprised under two sub-arches, either of which contains a
circle enclosing a trefoil, while above, in the head of the window, is a
large circle with five trefoils radiating from its centre. The
dripstones end in heads. A moulded string-course, with gargoyles, runs
below the parapet, which is a continuation of the plain coping on the
western bays.
From this point it will be best to return to the west front, and proceed
along the south side of the Cathedral.
=The Nave. South Side.=--This side is architecturally superior to the
other, and differs from it greatly in detail. The plinth, which is very
massive, rises even higher above that of the west front here than it
does there, and the buttresses project over 8 feet at the base and are
of three stages, and the gables on these have their sides straight,
their eaves everywhere continued to the wall, and their corners enriched
with heads, but on the second stage only. In the two easternmost
buttresses the lowest stage has heads also, and in the last buttress
eastwards this stage, for some unexplained reason, is twice as broad as
the others, and has an ogee gable. On all gables the crockets are large,
and the finials, which here stand upon the apex, are huge and very
boldly executed; while the rudimentary pinnacles are thicker here than
on the north side and more detached from the parapet. The wall is
thickened up to the windows, below which there is a set-off, and the
windows themselves are so moulded as to seem set in heavy frames, and
are much less acutely pointed than in the other aisle, their arches
approaching the 'drop' form. The rather clumsy mullions are carried up
through the head, but branch out to form arches over the side lights,
and are reduced in thickness above the branching point; and in the head
there is a transom, except in the narrow easternmost window. Though the
aisles differ so much, the clearstorey is much the same on this side as
on the other, and again one of Archbishop Roger's buttresses is visible,
imbedded between the Perpendicular walling and the west tower. The
height of his roof is indicated by the weathering on the central tower
and by the west gable, and the sixteenth century roof was probably not
lower, for the central tower shows high weatherings of the latter period
also; but the pitch had been lowered before the last restoration, and
Sir Gilbert Scott was unable to raise it to the full height. It is to be
hoped that the raising may yet be accomplished, and that lead may be
substituted for slate.
=The South Transept=, all but its eastern side, is mainly Archbishop
Roger's work. The plinth is altogether lower not only than that of the
nave, and even of the west front, but also than that of the other
transept, and the architecture thus expresses the downward slope of the
ground from north to south as well as from west to east. Here, as in the
nave, the buttresses have a greater projection than on the north side of
the church, as if the ground here were more liable to settle. As this
transept bears a general resemblance to the other, it will be best to
note only the points in which they differ. In the west wall the window
in the second stage has no mullion, the innermost buttress is of the
same type as its next neighbour, and the parapet is returned over all
the buttresses, thus forming three 'turrets,' of which that nearest to
the nave rests partially on a large corbel. The staircase at the
south-west corner terminates at the top in a square turret with a
pyramidal stone cap.
In the south elevation the doorway is very elaborate. The opening is of
the form sometimes called the shouldered arch, a square lintel (which,
curiously enough, is not one stone) resting on corbels; and the
semicircular arch over this is of four orders, the uppermost of which
projects considerably from the wall. On either side there are five
shafts, the outermost order having two, which are placed on the front of
the jamb and share one abacus. These two shafts are worked on the stones
of the jamb--a mode of construction not very common in such early
doorways. The details resemble those of the less elaborate doorway in
the other transept, but some of the foliage on the capitals here is
almost Early English. This doorway is approached by five steps, and was
once covered by a Renaissance porch.
[Illustration: DOORWAY, SOUTH TRANSEPT.]
In the windows of the second stage the abacus of the capitals is
continued as a string from window to window. The two flanking buttresses
have been crowned at some later period with gables ending in finials,
and the great gable is pierced with a Perpendicular window of three
lights, which has three transoms in the head, the mullions carried up to
the archivolt, and a dripstone ending in foliage. The sides of the gable
here do not take an upward turn to meet the corners, and there are no
flanking turrets. In the end of the aisle the blocked upper window is
pointed, and has a little trefoiled niche above and to the left of it,
and there is no thickening of the masonry above to necessitate
carrying-arches. The buttresses at the corner reach to the top of the
parapet and have no surmounting pinnacle. The small portion of the east
side of the aisle which is not concealed by the Chapter-house and
Lady-loft displays in the lower stage a somewhat inexplicable blind
arch, carrying an inclined thickening of the masonry that has been
afterwards built up to a level, and below the parapet a moulded cornice
like that on the north side of the church. This cornice is continued
within the Lady-loft, and reappears over the last bay of the
choir-aisle.
=The Chapter-House.=--The south aisle of the choir is concealed by a wing
of three storeys, of which the lowest, though exposed to view by the
conditions of the site, is of the nature of a crypt, while the second
comprises the Chapter-house and vestry, and the third, known as the
Lady-loft, is an addition, probably of the fourteenth century. The first
two storeys seem to have formed part of a church earlier than Archbishop
Roger's,[43] and have been variously ascribed to Archbishops Thurstan
(1114-1141)[44] and Thomas of Bayeux (1069-1100).[45] From the east wall
of these two storeys an apse is thrown out, upon which rests a square
projection from the Lady-loft, too short to be called a chancel. The two
westernmost buttresses, up to the string above the crypt, are evidently
additions by Archbishop Roger, while the third, which completely encases
a three-sided apsidal projection at the corner of the vestry, is of much
later date and will be examined presently. Adjoining it is a flat
pilaster buttress, apparently original. The crypt has five unglazed
windows along the south side, all round-headed and plainly splayed, and,
where it joins the transept, there is a large rectangular squint which
gives light to a staircase that leads up to the Chapter-house. A pointed
doorway, made in later times, cuts into the fourth window from the west.
In the second storey there are on this side only four windows, which are
spaced without any regard to the position of those below. The two
westernmost, which are circular and without tracery--a type of window
that is somewhat rare--can hardly be later than the time of Archbishop
Roger, and may be earlier: the next two are square and of much later
date. Above the windows the eaves of the original roofs remain,
supported on a corbel-table which is carried round the apsidal chamber
at the corner and round the eastern apse. At the south side of the
latter the builders have left a narrow recess which extends from the
ground nearly to the top of the crypt.
The apse displays in the lower storey a round-headed unglazed window
like those along the south wall, and in the upper storey a small
round-headed light at the south side and a larger window in the middle,
of the same size as that below, but not so deeply splayed, and with the
head rudely trefoiled. On either side of these central windows, a shaft,
made in short joints, runs up the apse from base to eaves. The string
between the two storeys is carried round these shafts, and their
circular bases overhang the plinth and rest on small blocks, while the
capitals are square-topped, as in Archbishop Roger's work. From the roof
of this apse and of the apsidal chamber at the corner, and from the
eaves that project along the south wall, it would seem that the whole
structure was roofed with stone at a steep inclination. Where its wall
joins the transept the stone-work seems to be of the same date on both
sides of the corner, so that there may have been an original buttress or
wall extending southwards from this point.
The third storey is now the Cathedral library, but was originally the
=Lady-chapel=, and was commonly called the Lady-loft. Such a position for
a Lady-chapel--at the south side of the choir, and in an upper
storey--is extremely unusual.[46] Authorities have differed widely as to
its date. Some have assigned it to about 1482; but the Lady-loft is
clearly mentioned in the Treasurers' Rolls in 1470, and its
architecture, which is Decorated rather than Perpendicular, would be in
favour of ascribing it to the middle of the previous century, were it
not for a certain coarseness of execution which makes a suspension of
judgment advisable.[47] To support this additional storey, the two
western buttresses were carried up, diminishing both in projection and
in width, to within a few feet of the upper string-course. The huge
buttress at the corner was very possibly added later, to counteract a
settlement which is evident to anyone so standing as to bring the shafts
on the apse in line with the corner of the choir, and which was
doubtless due to the weight of the Lady-loft. This buttress is of the
same height as the others, but is broader, and has as many as seven
stages, the fourth of which is crowned by a truncated hip roof and
pierced with a slit to light the apsidal chamber within, from whose
sloping top the upper stages spring. Traces of some external means of
access to this apsidal chamber from below may be seen at the west side.
Except one small lancet adjoining this buttress, the windows of the
Lady-loft are square-headed, with mullions branching out into
intersecting arches whose cusps spring from the soffit independently of
the mouldings--an early feature; and the dripstones are square labels
terminating in foliage, but with the ends not returned. Altogether these
are more like the windows of a castle or manor-house than of a church.
The four towards the south are of three lights, but the east window has
five lights and is set higher in the wall, while its dripstone
terminates at one end in a grotesque sitting figure. Various gargoyles
project from the string-course, which rises to pass over the east
window. The angles of the east end seem to rest upon the very edge of
the cornice of the apse, and one wonders how the wall is supported along
the chord of the curve. In reality, however, the apse is not so sharply
curved internally as externally, and its walls are very thick, so that
the square form could be imposed upon the round without much
overlapping. The parapet shows the same wide merlons and cruciform
piercings which characterize the other Decorated parapets of the church,
and it may have been brought forward from the choir-aisle.
The last bay of the latter displays a window like those on the north
side, but having foliage on the capitals of the shafts; and below the
parapet runs the cornice continued from the transept, with a curious
gargoyle upon it. Part of the base of Archbishop Roger's choir-aisle is
visible imbedded between this wall and the apse.
Those parts of the church which were rebuilt after the collapse of the
south-east corner of the tower can be best examined from the roof of the
Lady-loft, which forms with the roofs of the aisles a level surface of
considerable extent.
=The East Side of the South Transept= has three buttresses, crowned by
pinnacles of which the two nearest to the tower are modern. The central
buttress is much shallower than the others and has a different
termination. The clearstorey displays three well-arched windows of three
lights (the innermost window a little smaller than the others) with
tracery not unlike that in the south aisle of the nave. The parapet is
probably old Decorated work that has been used again, for it has the
wide merlons and cruciform piercings characteristic of early
battlements, and the Perpendicular pinnacles, it will be noticed, are
not in the middle of the merlons. The manner in which the corner of the
tower has been reconstructed is extremely interesting. Up the angle
formed by choir and transept runs a sort of excrescence of masonry that
blossoms out, so to speak, into an extraordinary complication of
corbelling near the top, and is itself corbelled away at the bottom. In
this excrescence, as elsewhere, old materials have been used again, and
in the projecting mass, at the level of both triforium and clearstorey,
are the springings of arches curving eastwards and southwards, which
suggest that the adjoining walls had at first been intended to be on a
more advanced plane, and that the arches of the triforium were to have
been round in the transept (where, by the way, they are recessed) as
they are in the choir. This angle contains the tower staircase, which is
lighted by a little window in the upper corbelling and is reached from
the clearstorey gallery of the transept. On this side of the church the
parapet walk has to be carried round the corners of the tower on
squinches.
[Illustration: RECONSTRUCTED ANGLE OF THE GREAT TOWER, (SOUTH TRANSEPT
AND CHOIR.)]
=The Central Tower. South and East Sides.=--The south and east faces are
each divided by a central pilaster running up to the top of the parapet,
but otherwise the general scheme is not unlike that of the older sides,
save that the windows here are set higher in the wall. Each window has
two lights, wide and low, with much tracery above them, in which the
mullion branches into two sub-arches; and there are dripstones ending in
heads. The high weathering on these sides indicates that it was not in
the Perpendicular period that the roofs of the church were so
unfortunately lowered. At either end of each of these sides a buttress
rises to the base of the parapet in three stages, the second of which
has on the front a panel with an ogee crocketed hood and is crowned by a
gable with a grotesque at each corner, while the third is narrower,
but is also panelled. Various gargoyles project from the uppermost
string, which on the east side is not broken by the central pilaster. As
this string is higher than the corbel-table of the older sides, the
tower presents a very curious appearance when seen from the south-west
or north-east.[48] The battlements and pinnacles were perhaps first
added when the south and east sides were rebuilt, but in places they
have been much renewed. The stair-turret is surmounted by a hexagonal
stone cap, which is pierced with a spire-light and crowned by a finial;
and there is also a wooden polygonal bell-cote at the north-west corner
of the tower. At the north-east angle the Perpendicular masonry turns
the corner and enfolds the Transitional buttresses, where it stops with
a jagged edge. This unfinished work has a considerable projection from
the Transitional walling, the intention having been, perhaps, to correct
externally the obliquity in the ground plan of Roger's tower;[49] it is
also corbelled away at the bottom, probably to afford freer passage
along the parapet walk and to avoid the necessity of a squinch.
Originally the tower had perhaps a low pyramidal roof without a parapet,
and then came several successive spires. The last of these, which fell
in 1660, is said to have been 120 feet high from the top of the tower,
and its disappearance has surely done more than anything else to spoil
the external effect of the building.[50]
=The South Side of the Choir.=--Here the three westernmost bays are
Perpendicular and the others Decorated. The westernmost window is
smaller than the rest, and is of three lights, with the mullions carried
up through the head. The next two windows imitate in curvature their
Decorated neighbours, and are of four lights, with the central mullion
branching out to form two sub-arches, between which a foliated circle, a
feature not common in Perpendicular windows, is introduced into the
head. In the fourth bay the Decorated arch has been filled with
Perpendicular tracery, but the fifth and sixth windows remain in their
original beauty as on the north side, save that in the easternmost the
small circles have been mutilated and have lost their foliation. The two
flying buttresses resemble those on the north side, but from the points
where they meet the wall two pilasters run up into the parapet, which is
flush with them and is crowned by a plain coping, while beneath it is a
string, with gargoyles. Except at this end the wall, as in the
clearstorey of the nave, is not buttressed, notwithstanding the size of
the windows and their nearness together.
[Illustration: FLYING BUTTRESSES, SOUTH SIDE OF CHOIR.]
=The East End.=--The rebuilding of the east end of Archbishop Roger's
choir was probably the object of an indulgence of 1284 by Archbishop
Wickwaine, a brief of 1285 by Pope Celestine V., two indulgences issued
in 1288 and 1300 respectively by Archbishops Romanus and Corbridge, and
some credentials issued by the latter in 1302 for a collector of funds.
And yet it is hard to fix the date of the work with any exactness. It
had apparently not begun in 1286, for a mandate of Archbishop Romanus in
that year begins _Cancellus Rypon' ruinosus reparetur_; but it may have
been completed before the irruption of the Scots in 1318. Two
indulgences of Archbishop Melton, one of which is dated 1328, do indeed
allude to some "new work" as still unfinished, but this "new work" may
have been the repairs necessitated by the violence of the Scots.[51] The
east end of the Cathedral, then, recalls that period in our history when
Edward I. was wrestling with the Scottish problem, and was also carrying
into effect those lessons in representative government which he had
learnt from Simon de Montfort.
[Illustration: THE EAST END.]
The well-marked plinth of this east end has been already noticed. Either
corner of the choir contains a staircase, and is strengthened by a pair
of massive buttresses and crowned by an octagonal turret with a conical
stone cap and a finial. These buttresses have a projection of 8 feet,
rise to the top of the aisles, and are surmounted by gables with
finials, and at the north corner the gables and the coping of the aisle
are crocketed. At the south corner the upper part of the turret has
been used as a cell. It is lighted by a small slit and has a wooden
floor with a trap in it, from which a ladder once descended to the head
of the staircase; and at the west side, in the parapet of the aisle,
there is a garderobe seat. It would be interesting to know whether this
turret was a prison, or a place of penance, or whether it was occupied
by a watchman or sentinel, or, as is not improbable, by one of those
recluses who were so often attached to religious communities in the
middle ages. The central compartment is flanked by two huge buttresses,
which have a projection of 10 feet at the bottom and rise to the base of
the gable, or rather a little above it, in two stages only, the lower
stage reaching a little above the coping of the aisles, and both stages
are crowned by gables with finials.[52] The three compartments of the
front are on the same plane. Each aisle shows at the end a window of the
same pattern with these in the sides, and that in the south aisle has
foliage on the capitals of its shafts and is surmounted by a little
window of trefoil form which lights a staircase within, for staircases
ascend over these windows in the thickness of the wall and run up the
angles of the clearstorey.
The great window in the central compartment is one of the finest
examples of Geometrical tracery, if not one of the largest windows, in
England. It is over 50 feet high, is 25 feet wide, and has seven lights.
Of these the three at either end are comprised under a sub-arch, in the
head of which are three cinquefoiled circles, while the central light of
the seven is surmounted by an arch, not so high as its neighbours, but
impaling upon its acute point a huge circle which fills the head of the
window and contains six trefoils radiating from its centre. The arch of
this superb window is rather acutely pointed and richly moulded, and has
two very slender shafts worked on the stones of either jamb, with
foliage on their capitals. Just above the ground below this window there
may be observed in the wall one of the many architectural puzzles in
which the Cathedral abounds, a half-arch, rising toward the right and
filled in with masonry, except at the right side, where is a narrow
opening that runs in for a few feet.[53] A string-course continued from
the sides of the aisles passes below the three windows and round the
buttresses, which are further relieved at a little height above it by a
set-off. The gable has been entirely rebuilt by Sir Gilbert Scott. It is
slightly set back, and displays a lofty window of four lights with
geometrical tracery not unlike that in the great window below. On either
side of this window there is panelling graduated to suit the triangular
space, and the gable is crowned by an elaborate cross and flanked by two
pinnacles which resemble those of the flying buttresses but are larger
and have foliage at the corners instead of heads. The original Decorated
gable was probably very much of this pattern. Its height was indicated
by the weathering on the tower, and it seems to have had flanking
pinnacles and graduated panelling. It had, however, been lowered in
pitch and had been altered also by the insertion of a rather debased
Perpendicular window.[54] Whatever may be thought, therefore, of Sir
Gilbert Scott's action in rebuilding it, he has surely improved the
general effect of the front, and it is well that one of the roofs, at
any rate, should have been raised to the original pitch. What is most to
be regretted, perhaps, is the removal of all traces, if any there were,
of the chantry of the Holy Trinity _supra summum altare_, which was
situated, as its name implies, in the roof, behind the old gable.
In Archbishop Roger's day the choir was probably as long as it is now,
and Walbran (followed by Sir Gilbert Scott) believed that the aisles at
that period were returned across the east end. If so, the clearstorey
must have been a bay shorter than at present, with a pent roof
projecting from below it on the east side to cover the returned portion
of the aisle. The rebuilding of the east end in the Decorated period was
the first operation in which limestone was employed, but much of the old
gritstone has been used again.
[Illustration: THE NORTH-WESTERN PORTION OF THE NAVE.
(Junction of XIIth and XVIth Century work.)]
FOOTNOTES:
[33] The name Ripon comes probably from the Latin _ripa_, "a river's
bank." Bede uses a form "Inrhypum," which arose perhaps out of _in
ripis_. The derivation _Uri pons_ has been generally abandoned.
[34] The reason of the peculiarity here is the unusual width of the
nave. (_See below_, p. 44.)
[35] This will be explained in Chapter III.
[36] See illustration, p. 17.
[37] This was pointed out by Walbran.
[38] The Transitional or Transition-Norman work at Ripon probably was
not all erected during Roger's lifetime, but all of it will, in these
pages, be associated with his name.
[39] Upon a modern Chapter seal there is what is possibly meant for a
representation of Roger's church, with western towers, three spires, and
no aisles. The seal is a reproduction of another of the time of James
I., which may have been reproduced from a third of earlier date.
[40] For the origin and meaning of this knotwork, so often found in
these islands on ancient crosses, and for its value as an illustration
of the possible connection of Saxon architecture with the Comacine Guild
of Italy, see _The Cathedral Builders_, by Leader Scott, pp. 82-99, and
p. 145.
[41] This was the case with all the windows of both transepts--in the
lower tier at any rate--until the last restoration. The reason why Sir
Gilbert Scott has left or renewed the mullions in some of the windows is
probably that he did not wish to disturb the memorial glass.
[42] The suggestion was made by Mr. Francis Bond.
[43] _I.e._, they were probably a Southern Chapel of the choir (_vid.
inf._, Ch. III.). It is doubtful whether this earlier choir itself can
have had a crypt.
[44] By Sir Gilbert Scott.
[45] By Walbran.
[46] Lady-chapels are usually found at the extreme east end of the
choir, unless that position was wanted for the resting-place of a local
saint.
[47] Walbran favoured 1482; Sir Gilbert Scott the middle of the
fourteenth century.
[48] See the illustration, p. 2.
[49] _The Builder_, February 4th, 1893.
[50] This last spire must have been erected after all intention of
rebuilding the north and west sides of the tower had been given up, and
therefore (perhaps) after the dissolution. The three spires are shown
upon the seventeenth century communion plate and in several old prints
(see the illustration, p. 32). They were wooden and covered with lead,
and are represented as octagonal. The two at the west end are shown
without parapets at the base, and all three are without those sloping
spurs which so often connect an octagonal spire with the corners of the
tower.
[51] Dean Waddilove, in his monograph on the Cathedral, mentions that
the date 1330 is to be found upon the choir, but he does not say where.
Walbran believed the work to have been executed between 1280 and 1297,
and is followed by Sir Gilbert Scott.
[52] The buttresses of this east wall were formerly connected at the
bottom by a debased battlemented wall, and the space within was used for
sheds, the grooves for whose pent roofs can be seen on the sides of the
buttresses.
[53] The arch springs from the buttress (as an excavation in 1900
showed), and may perhaps be a relieving-arch, to take the weight off a
weak place in the foundations. Yet it was not intended, apparently, to
be filled up. The stones forming the right edge of the hole are coigns,
and have mason-marks on their sides. At the back of the hole the masonry
appears to be of some antiquity: may it be part of the foundation of the
east end of Archbishop Roger's choir?
[54] There are several prints of the Cathedral, as it was before
restoration, in the Ripon Museum.
[Illustration: CONJECTURAL VIEW OF INTERIOR OF ARCHBISHOP ROGER'S NAVE
BY SIR G. G. SCOTT.
(By the kind permission of the Archaeological Institute.)]